• Welcome to Smashboards, the world's largest Super Smash Brothers community! Over 250,000 Smash Bros. fans from around the world have come to discuss these great games in over 19 million posts!

    You are currently viewing our boards as a visitor. Click here to sign up right now and start on your path in the Smash community!

Path to your main

Forêt

Smash Rookie
Joined
Nov 20, 2016
Messages
13
Location
Montréal, QC
Hi smashers ! I've been "active" in the melee competitive scene for about a year now, so I felt like it was time that I make my first post on the boards. I always liked to know the story for people's decisions and the philosophy behind it. So today I ask you: What is the path that leaded to main your present main?

By that I mean: who where all your melee mains trough time? Why? What made you switch? Etc.

Personally, I started playing melee casually when I was about 10 or something and I pretty much "mained" Link. The reason being that I really liked Zelda: OOT, that I liked is projectiles and I tought dair was such a powerful move (Actually it was against level 5 CPUs).

After that I lost the game, stopped playing, played brawl casually from time to time, stopped playing at all, watched the smash documentary years after, tought melee was awesome, bought it back, got hooked.

From that point I picked up Ganon primarily because I liked Falcon moveset but he was way to fast for me at the time. Also Ganon was easier to implement new advanced techs like WD, WL and SHFFL for a newcomer.

Couple of months later I went back to my old Link mainly because... Nostalgia. Also Ganon did not suit me at all and I got bored of playing him. I mean he's fun to play, like pretty much all the cast, but he's a tank and link is more a control character to my eyes, the style that I prefer to play in almost all type of games. Actually control and balance are the things that I judge most important in life.

I sticked to Link for a long time, even in the 1 or 2 tourneys that I went (Alternating between him and Y. Link). At that point I was aware of the tier list but it never was something that was going to make me switch to a better, less fun character. My philosophy about this is that I will play a character that I have fun with and that I love over one that is just good. Even if it means losing alot.

After, I started playing Mario as a secondary for the moments that I did not feel for big mind games and space control but more for flashy and unique combo game. He grewed out to be my main because I had more fun and better results with him and there was still a little touch of control/mind-boggling to him, the infamous cape !

Mario started to feel off after some time because of the unidimensional way of playing him. So I Went back to my roots and choosed to main his alter ego, the Doctor. Sacrificing speed and big combo strings for more heavy and effective hits and his lovely pills.

Since then, I've been maining Dr. Mario and I have made Zelda my secondary for various reason that I won't speak about on that post because I realised it is WAY longer than I tought it will be.

That was the story of my main, for now... Can't wait to hear your stories guys !
 
Last edited:

My name is 3

Smash Rookie
Joined
Nov 22, 2016
Messages
1
Don't you know my story ?

My best friend introduce me in melee about one year ago, if i remember well this is how it goes.

I started with thy legendary Doc, at first i wasn't taking melee really seriously... But even though i kept that nice character.

After a while, I went to go in a all around of the cast of that game.

And, finally i play peach, for the good defence/offence possibility!

Peach main ! but love to play all the cast !
 

Forêt

Smash Rookie
Joined
Nov 20, 2016
Messages
13
Location
Montréal, QC
Don't you know my story ?

My best friend introduce me in melee about one year ago, if i remember well this is how it goes.

I started with thy legendary Doc, at first i wasn't taking melee really seriously... But even though i kept that nice character.

After a while, I went to go in a all around of the cast of that game.

And, finally i play peach, for the good defence/offence possibility!

Peach main ! but love to play all the cast !
I don't only know your story, I lived your story mate !
 

-ACE-

Gotem City Vigilante
Joined
Sep 25, 2007
Messages
11,536
Location
The back country, GA
That's a wise path. But why did you decide to follow it ?
Sometime in late 2005 my brother and i were playing with the group of casual players that introduced me to the game. I was first a Marth main and he played sheik. But then my brother picked Ganondorf and proceded to punch people off the screen and taunt. Instantly, I knew which character was for me.
 
Last edited:

JFB (JurgaBurgaFlintines)

Smash Apprentice
Joined
Apr 20, 2014
Messages
182
Location
Harrisburg, Pennsylvania
You'd think that since I play Marth, I picked him up because he was a top tier... right? Well that wasn't the case at all. If I want to explain why I main Marth, I have to explain how I got into competitive Melee.

I want to say that my first time (to my memory) I played Melee was all the way in 2004 (Anytime after November of that year) when I was 3-4 years old O_o. All I remember is playing at my cousin's house (Didn't have a GameCube yet) playing 100-Man-Melee with Donkey Kong doing the Down-B strategy and actually winning (And to this day I don't know how I figured out the strategy without ever playing the game frequently). Sadly I didn't beat Falco because he looked very scary. Fastforward a year later and our dad buys my sister's and I a GameCube. Among the few games, there is Melee. Now early on I didn't play it much since I'm only 4 years old and it's a bad idea to let a young child play such a violent game. When I moved to PA a year later, I started playing it more.

When I was younger, I didn't get to play with other people much. My sister didn't play video games nearly as much as I did. All of my friends in elementary and middle school either had a GameCube/Wii and didn't have Melee, or had an Xbox 360 or PS3. So most of my time spent playing this game was spent playing it alone (And this is mostly true to this day). I would always play a combination of: Marth, Roy, Link, Young Link, Ganondorf and Bowser. For some reason I always went back to Marth, and I don't know why.

Well, when I finally watched the Smash Brother's Documentary in October of 2013, I was blown away. A game that I have played frequently in my childhood had a competitive scene? And I didn't know about it (Well I did learn to wavedash and know about Ken before learning about competitive Melee, but I never connected things together somehow)? I probably watched the documentary a few more times, until I decided that I wanted to be the best in Melee (lol m2k). Anyways, when it came time to pick a main, I decided to pick Marth because I just liked playing him for some reason. When I looked at the tier list later on and realized that Marth was one of the best and I was like "cool".

Have I though about switching mains? Yes actually, about a year ago in the summer of 2015. I was considering switching to Falco because it was frustrating playing Marth at first. After a few weeks, I decided that I will ride or die Marth no matter what happens. My reason was that Marth theoretically wins or goes even in every matchup. If I lose to a Yoshi, Pikachu, Falco, Shiek, it doesn't matter. If I lose to them, it is only my fault, not the character's. I have to directly tackle the problem and solve it rather than putting a band-aid over it by picking up a secondary.

Anyways, I'm done talking.
 

Mr Snak3_

Smash Apprentice
Joined
Mar 29, 2016
Messages
75
I picked Falco for the S T Y L E
Then have fox because my multishines are to fast for Falco
I play most other characters when I get bored of them though

I also recently hurt my thumb so I couldn't multishine, so I've been fiddling with ice climbers and the awesome set ups
Still yet to get a proper wobble
 

Forêt

Smash Rookie
Joined
Nov 20, 2016
Messages
13
Location
Montréal, QC
Sometime in late 2005 my brother and i were playing with the group of casual players that introduced me to the game. I was first a Marth main and he played sheik. But then my brother picked Ganondorf and preceded to punch people off the screen and taunt. Instantly, I knew which character was for me.
Always loved to see Ganon disrespecting on other people!
You'd think that since I play Marth, I picked him up because he was a top tier... right? Well that wasn't the case at all. If I want to explain why I main Marth, I have to explain how I got into competitive Melee.

I want to say that my first time (to my memory) I played Melee was all the way in 2004 (Anytime after November of that year) when I was 3-4 years old O_o. All I remember is playing at my cousin's house (Didn't have a GameCube yet) playing 100-Man-Melee with Donkey Kong doing the Down-B strategy and actually winning (And to this day I don't know how I figured out the strategy without ever playing the game frequently). Sadly I didn't beat Falco because he looked very scary. Fastforward a year later and our dad buys my sister's and I a GameCube. Among the few games, there is Melee. Now early on I didn't play it much since I'm only 4 years old and it's a bad idea to let a young child play such a violent game. When I moved to PA a year later, I started playing it more.

When I was younger, I didn't get to play with other people much. My sister didn't play video games nearly as much as I did. All of my friends in elementary and middle school either had a GameCube/Wii and didn't have Melee, or had an Xbox 360 or PS3. So most of my time spent playing this game was spent playing it alone (And this is mostly true to this day). I would always play a combination of: Marth, Roy, Link, Young Link, Ganondorf and Bowser. For some reason I always went back to Marth, and I don't know why.

Well, when I finally watched the Smash Brother's Documentary in October of 2013, I was blown away. A game that I have played frequently in my childhood had a competitive scene? And I didn't know about it (Well I did learn to wavedash and know about Ken before learning about competitive Melee, but I never connected things together somehow)? I probably watched the documentary a few more times, until I decided that I wanted to be the best in Melee (lol m2k). Anyways, when it came time to pick a main, I decided to pick Marth because I just liked playing him for some reason. When I looked at the tier list later on and realized that Marth was one of the best and I was like "cool".

Have I though about switching mains? Yes actually, about a year ago in the summer of 2015. I was considering switching to Falco because it was frustrating playing Marth at first. After a few weeks, I decided that I will ride or die Marth no matter what happens. My reason was that Marth theoretically wins or goes even in every matchup. If I lose to a Yoshi, Pikachu, Falco, Shiek, it doesn't matter. If I lose to them, it is only my fault, not the character's. I have to directly tackle the problem and solve it rather than putting a band-aid over it by picking up a secondary.

Anyways, I'm done talking.
It's great to see the dedication that you have toward your main. It truly looks like unconditional love that you feel for him. Marth is actually the only tournament viable character that I like to mess with a little bit more seriously, his movement is so beautiful and elegant.
I picked Falco for the S T Y L E
Then have fox because my multishines are to fast for Falco
I play most other characters when I get bored of them though

I also recently hurt my thumb so I couldn't multishine, so I've been fiddling with ice climbers and the awesome set ups
Still yet to get a proper wobble
ICs setups are crazy! They're such an abstract character to me. I tought about trying to get good with them, but I never took the time to learn all the new techs that it implies.
 

Mr Snak3_

Smash Apprentice
Joined
Mar 29, 2016
Messages
75
ICs setups are crazy! They're such an abstract character to me. I tought about trying to get good with them, but I never took the time to learn all the new techs that it implies.
grab, blizzard, pummel, wobble
 

Spak

Hero of Neverwinter
Joined
Jul 30, 2014
Messages
4,032
Location
Earth
I mained Falco from 2012-2014, then around Thanksgiving 2014 I switched to Falcon because I didn't wanna learn how to shine properly. I honed my Falcon skills to fulfil my dream of being the best Falcon in NC (which died when I remembered $Mike's existence), so I honed my Falcon skills to fulfil my dream of being the best Falcon in Apex High (which I achieved, although there was a Fox main who had a Falcon secondary that was really even with mine. Then in 2016, I moved to Indiana for college where nobody plays Melee (I'm the best player in our residence hall and beat everyone so badly that nobody wants to play with me), so I began to main Calculus. Hopefully I can go back to being a Falcon main for a couple of weeks when I come home for Christmas.
 

-ACE-

Gotem City Vigilante
Joined
Sep 25, 2007
Messages
11,536
Location
The back country, GA
I mained Falco from 2012-2014, then around Thanksgiving 2014 I switched to Falcon because I didn't wanna learn how to shine properly. I honed my Falcon skills to fulfil my dream of being the best Falcon in NC (which died when I remembered $Mike's existence), so I honed my Falcon skills to fulfil my dream of being the best Falcon in Apex High (which I achieved, although there was a Fox main who had a Falcon secondary that was really even with mine. Then in 2016, I moved to Indiana for college where nobody plays Melee (I'm the best player in our residence hall and beat everyone so badly that nobody wants to play with me), so I began to main Calculus. Hopefully I can go back to being a Falcon main for a couple of weeks when I come home for Christmas.
Lol, i was the best NC Ganon at one time. But then i moved to FL, which has Linguini, Spider_sense, Tipman, RockCrock, as well as Eikelmann/Renth at the time. Now im just a Ganon player looool
 

nebula_benula

Smash Cadet
Joined
Sep 3, 2015
Messages
26
Location
Oviedo, Florida
It all started with Brawl... lol
A little while after Brawl came out, I played it casually with my little brother for almost 2 years
We were complete scrubs who knew nothing of strategy of course
I saw a Luigi main who was dope and learned about Project M
I quickly realized that PM was made to specifically be more like melee... so I borrowed it from my friend and started playing
Picked Luigi
Got into the competitive scene and started to learn very quickly, you know how it is these days
Started to completely **** on my friends with Luigi, getting those sweet shoryukens
I started watching tons and tons of youtube videos of Abate, and ROFL, and Eddy Mexico, and soon began on the path of the Cowardly Brother.
 

Forêt

Smash Rookie
Joined
Nov 20, 2016
Messages
13
Location
Montréal, QC
Lol, i was the best NC Ganon at one time. But then i moved to FL, which has Linguini, Spider_sense, Tipman, RockCrock, as well as Eikelmann/Renth at the time. Now im just a Ganon player looool
Never noticed that there were so much good Ganons in FL! Literally all the best Ganon mains are there or used to except Kage and Bizz.
 
Last edited:

Synnett

Alligator Lord
Joined
Jan 19, 2015
Messages
1,577
Location
Montreal, QC
When I first played Melee in 2003, I picked Bowser. He was hard to play so I switched to Pikachu because he was easier to play. For 8 years I played Pikachu casually.

Then I wanted to play competitive, and I started reading tutorials for Pikachu. But I found them very boring, and having to follow an optimal way to play him felt depressing to me. So I went back to my favorite character, Bowser. He literally had no tutorials, and I had to find every single thing on my own, which was really fun. I optimized my own character and learned everything by myself, it felt very fulfilling. So now I'm trying to push Bowser to the top.
:bowsermelee:
 
Last edited:

Forêt

Smash Rookie
Joined
Nov 20, 2016
Messages
13
Location
Montréal, QC
When I first played Melee in 2003, I picked Bowser. He was hard to play so I switched to Pikachu because he was easier to play. For 8 years I played Pikachu casually.

Then I wanted to play competitive, and I started reading tutorials for Pikachu. But I found them very boring, and having to follow an optimal way to play him felt depressing to me. So I went back to my favorite character, Bowser. He literally had no tutorials, and I had to find every single thing on my own, which was really fun. I optimized my own character and learned everything by myself, it felt very fulfilling. So now I'm trying to push Bowser to the top.
:bowsermelee:
I like your point of view! And I juste noticed you're from Montreal, do you go to the Smash Loft some times? I think a saw you there.
 

mangú

Smash Rookie
Joined
Apr 27, 2016
Messages
6
When I was so young before I could remember, i played roy because teh phir3, then when brawl came out i stoppeed playing melee, then my friends and I bought a wiiu between the 4 of us and I got int competitive sm4sh. Then one of my friends took the wii u to his house for his turn and we kinda stopped playing sm4sh for months, during that time i got into pm, and I mained falco because he was dank and one of my best friends mained him and he played so cool. I hated fox because i thought he made the meta stale. Then i tried him out and grinded tech because that's easy to practice. Then i started grinding tech in melee because it was stricter, then I started playimg melee, then i picked marth on a whim and I really liked him, and i mained fox falco marth samus for a while. One upping plup. Then recently i picked peach on a whim and really liked her, and then i picked marth agaiin and reaaally liked him so now i main marth and peach.
 

iAmMatt

Smash Journeyman
Joined
Oct 18, 2015
Messages
452
Location
Southern RI
NNID
mattgw420
Mained game and watch, then I realized he's bad
Mained sheik, then I realized cc is too good against her
Mained Marth, then I realized I can't space for ****
Mained puff, ez friendlies but people started to hate me
Main fox now because he's the best
 

iRayne

Smash Rookie
Joined
Nov 29, 2016
Messages
4
This is a really cool thread!

I played Melee with friends and family when it originally came out (I was about 10 at the time, I believe). My main was Pikachu, as he was my main in Smash64, so I just stuck with who I was familiar with. We were all terrible, and had no knowledge of advanced tech, but since we were kids, we mistakenly believed that we were hot s***. Haha.

I eventually stopped playing, but my interest in the game was revitalized after discovering the documentary. Ken's dominance inspired me to pick up Marth, who I played on-and-off for about a year. I didn't make very much progress, though, and it took me while to realize that Marth just simply wasn't for me. He wasn't fun enough, and getting kills with him never felt very exciting or satisfying, so I sort of fell into a slump, and wasn't sure if I even wanted to play anymore. I still continued to religiously watch tournaments and keep up with the competitive scene, though, because I still loved the game, as a spectator.

Over time, I realized that Fox was truly the character for me. My favorite aspects of a character are efficiency and flash, and Fox completely embodied that. Seeing what you could potentially do with him was really exciting. He's so free-flowing and explosive, which makes him really fun to play. When I played Marth, I'd get bored within an hour or two of playing, but that's not the case at all with Fox. When I have someone to play with (which isn't very often, sadly), I can play all day, and enjoy every second of it. My passion and drive to play is finally renewed, and it's a wonderful feeling!
 

Boots717

Smash Rookie
Joined
Dec 6, 2016
Messages
2
In the beginning it was all Roy. He has a freakin gold suit of armor and his sword sets people on fire. thats all an 8 year old needs. played strictly against siblings and elementary school friends, learned the controls with Roy.

Years roll by, brawl comes out and no one plays melee. I then get into college and find out that im not alone in the nostaglic bouts of nintendo characters and also earn that Roy is buns. so I became the best forwardsmashing Marth there was, because marth is just roy but good right? thats where i learned spacing and the existence of the competive smash community. also where i learned that fsmash blows.

So to counter the new falco friend i met (who made a daily having of whooping my butt) i decided to switch from marth to sheik to improve punishes. i also learned more about spacing and then simple tech like wavedashing.

With my new shiek skillz i went to my first tourney. everyone has gone to their "first" tourney and like most i was thoroughly convinced that i SUCKED. like everything i could possibly think or do was pubished so hard it would have made most people quit.

So i made the switch to captain falcon and now im the man.
 

Raycu

Smash Apprentice
Joined
Apr 18, 2015
Messages
142
When I was younger and played with my siblings I played Roy, because he was the k00lest. Then when I got into competitive smash more I decided to play Marth, because I love his playstyle, and after watching many combo videos and matches with Marth in them, I grew to admire and love the way he could block out an opponent, almost like people could see into the future when they played Marth.

Sadly I'm no where near that level but it's been tons of fun, I think there's still a lot of Marth play styles that aren't used, and I want to see what original things I can do with him.
 

DYLirious94

Smash Cadet
Joined
Jan 13, 2014
Messages
39
Alright so when i was a kid i used to go to my cousins and play n64 smash until my fi gers got blisters and i always played mario bc well mario. Then later on we got a gamecube and i had to get melee..me and my older brother wpuld always play and he'd be link and i would be mario and he beat me 29/30 times. That one win was enough to make me keep playing though he blocked me out with projectiles and items (yeah we turned them on).

After being frustrated a bunch i turned to the internet for some "advanced tips and tricks" so i could beat my brother. Hence i learned to wavecheat and thought to myself i can use this to get closer to him and still shield his arrows and boomerang. Little ol me though knew nothing of how to properly impliment wavecheating though. Over time my brother didnt want to play more and more because getting older and getting different interests. I played every now and again and practiced the tech on my mario.

Eventually after watching the documentary and realizing theres a big competitive scene for my childhood love of a game, i posted on smashboards here and found some people from my hometown that were going to a tourney. Go. Get absolutely demolished. Decide maybe i shouldnt play mario but someone better. Pick up fox. Get decently ok with him after a while and after being in and out of the scene every 3-4 months i finally decide fox isnt me, hes fun but just not me.

Decide im gonna ride or die falcon because i like playing him alot its just his recovery is turrible. So thats where im at.

Sorry for the long post
 

Maximoto99

Smash Rookie
Joined
Nov 27, 2016
Messages
6
Location
Ohio
NNID
Momagain99
It's a rather short story in my case. When I was younger, say about 6 to 8, I was going to some top tier gaming places (or toys r us, if you prefer), and I was allowed to get one game. I looked around a bit and saw brawl, and decided I wanted that (just wait I'm not a total casual). So yeah, from there, went back to my house and played the game with my bro for a bit and got to the marth unlock. We got him after about 5 tries, and of course tried him after the unlock. He hated the character, whereas I absolutely loved marth ( ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°) ). Nothing else much about that part, aside from my constant scrubby practices with marth. I played the game frequently until about 2013, when I learned there was a scene for an older smash game called "M e l e e". I watched a few videos on it, but I didn't care about it all too much. A while passed and I saw sm4sh was going to come out. I couldn't afford it, so I stuck with brawl trying to play it like sm4sh, which was horrible. I eventually got sm4sh, and played marth for a bit, but dropped him soon. I looked back at the melee scene after a year of sm4sh, and was absolutely intrigued. I watched hours upon hours of melee videos, and I learned about PM after a while. I got PM in preparation of melee play, and I played roy at first. I eventually decided to play marth so I can truly get ready for melee. So in the end, marth is my main, but I picked up Fox and Jiggs mainly because I want to be the very best (like no one ever was).
 

KrispyKabbage

Smash Cadet
Joined
Dec 18, 2016
Messages
42
I found Falco by accident, when I first got the game I was going through the unlocks to get every character and so when it came time to get Falco I did the Kirby dash attack tactic to get him and lost the battle. I came back and won and was laughing about how I went through all that trouble for a character I wasn't gonna use, but then I played him for a game and he was AWESOME, so I just improved and improved as him, and now he's my main.(Also, I WILL fight anyone who says fox is better)
 

Kaladel

Smash Rookie
Joined
Oct 7, 2016
Messages
3
When I was 6 my dad bought me s64 and he would play Samus and I would play Link. Years later I still played Link in melee but I kept wanting something a bit more read heavy and Link's setups for me were fun, but not satisfying. Thought I'd try out Samus and realized she was exactly what I was looking for. She still had ranged projectiles, multiple recovery options, and nothing is more satisfying than u-throw -> d-air -> d-smash on Yoshi Story's top platform hnnnnnnnng. Calling out the jump with charge shot works 90% of the time on anyone that isn't PR ranked too.

Also I still have this WILD belief that Samus is in the same tier as ICs and Falcon and that she simply hasn't been even close to fleshed out with all of her advanced tech. Not a very popular opinion, of course. Also a documentary kid too :^)
 

Zonda1996

Smash Rookie
Joined
Aug 29, 2016
Messages
13
I came from Smash 4 mid-late 2015 and started playing my main, Link straight away. He felt completely different to his later incarnation and I didn't like the differences, especially the stricter emphasis on movement. After a few weeks I got used to it, but still didn't like how he played in Melee.

I can't remember the details of it, but I remember trying out Sheik in November 2015 and liking her right away. She just felt intuitive, so I've just been playing her ever since.
 

atara

Smash Cadet
Joined
Mar 19, 2015
Messages
47
I used to play PM Lucario. At the time I messed around with a lot of other characters in PM as secondaries. Yoshi did a much better job of covering Lucario's bad matchups, but I enjoyed playing Pikachu a lot. I considered switching to PM Pikachu, but I decided that I was tired of dealing with 30 different matchups and really Pikachu has no more terrible matchups in Melee as PM; they just happen to be more common characters. In PM you have to deal with Dedede and buffed Mario (who already beat Pika in Melee) and so forth. Playing against fastfallers is more interesting, IMO.

I guess it's a little hypocritical to complain about matchup familiarity and switch to Pikachu, but is he really that unfamiliar anymore? Everyone and their mother knows about drillgrab, dthrow dthrow dthrow dthrow fair, etc.
 

AlexJ15

Smash Cadet
Joined
Oct 21, 2016
Messages
45
Finding a Melee main for me was very easy. Just look at the tier list, try out all the top 4 characters in the game, and pick one that best suits you.
 

Raycu

Smash Apprentice
Joined
Apr 18, 2015
Messages
142
Finding a Melee main for me was very easy. Just look at the tier list, try out all the top 4 characters in the game, and pick one that best suits you.
It sounds sort of depressing when you limit to the top four, especially considering at minimum, the top six are viable for tournament play.
 

Ocarinist Drew

Smash Rookie
Joined
Dec 26, 2016
Messages
2
Location
New England
The path to my main has been a long one, as I have been playing Smash since around 1999 or so. I was very young, around 3 or 4 years old, when my uncle gave me his N64 and my parents bought me Smash Bros for Christmas. I didn't know who any of the characters were besides Mario and Luigi, as the only video game I had played before was Super Mario Bros on my dad's NES. I mained Kirby because I thought his copy ability was just the coolest thing in the game.

A few years later, 2001, I was around 6 years old. My little brother was 4, finally old enough to play games with me. My parents bought us a Game Cube and Melee for Christmas. For the next several years, my brother and friends and I played Melee almost every weekend. I mostly mained Young Link, as at this point, I had played Majora's Mask on my N64. I had Mewtwo, G&W, and Kirby as secondaries. Keep in mind though, there wasn't really a competitive scene back then. Or at least, it was miniscule compared to how it is now. And my friends and I were way too young for tournaments anyway.

2007, Brawl comes out. My brother and I were constantly playing online with our cousins. I mained the Pokemon Trainer because I liked the mechanic of switching between three characters. At this point, my brother and cousins and I were getting more serious about Smash. We were older now, and had been playing since we were babies basically. We didn't know anything about the competitive scene, but we gradually started banning stages and items until the only item we played with was the Smash Ball. We were also playing stock mode now. I got tired of always losing to my brother's Falco and his broken-ass Land Master, so I took to the internet. I learned some advanced Brawl techniques, and really started taking the game more seriously.

I discovered Brawl+ and got really into that. This was when I learned there was a competitive scene. I still couldn't drive though, and I never really thought about going to tournaments. I just wanted to play with my friends online. Eventually Brawl+ was replaced by Project M. Project M didn't have the Pokemon Trainer, so I mained Charizard.

I enter college in 2014. At this point the Melee and Project M scenes are huge. I prefer Project M because tech is way easier and it has more characters. But the Melee scene at my school is bigger than the PM scene, so naturally I end up playing a lot of Melee with my friends there. By the end of my freshmen year, I had pretty much completely abandoned Project M and was a full-fledged Melee player. I was still really bad, but I liked how much faster Melee was.

My Melee friends told me that all my childhood mains were terrible, and that I should really pick a new main. I picked Luigi, because his movement felt really good to me. I remember thinking that competitive Melee players ONLY used wavedashes to move, so naturally I thought Luigi was the best character. My friends might have cringed a little, but they agreed that he was viable enough for me to start out with.

Throughout my sophomore year in college, I went to a lot of Melee tournaments. As I got better at the game, I started experimenting with more characters. For a while I was toying with the idea of switching mains to Falco, Falcon, or Marth. I was good enough to understand how these characters were much better than Luigi, and my tech skill was finally good enough that these characters didn't feel awkward and clunky to me. I was sort of attached to Luigi though. I liked being the "low tier hero". I liked being the guy who plays a weird, off-meta character. And I really liked the feeling I got, when in tournament, some scrub Fox main sits down next to me, thinking this is going to be an easy win for him, and then I start Vudu-dashing around and he perks up. I can smell the fear when he realizes he doesn't even have a clue what Luigi is capable of. (I don't get this sort of advantage further into the tournament, but still.)

So I've decided to stick with Luigi. I understand Luigi's flaws, and I understand the strengths of each of the top characters. Pretty much every matchup against any character ranked higher than Luigi (except maybe Pikachu and Ice Climbers) is an up-hill battle, and I'd be lying if I said that's not extremely frustrating sometimes. But I think Luigi has potential, and I'd much rather win with a character who most people consider barely viable, than win with one of the S tier characters.

As of now, I'm a junior in college. I consistently win 2 - 3 sets in tournament with Luigi before I get knocked out by the big boys. I've just gotten over a plateau though, so y'all better watch out. (;
 

ᴠanilla

Smash Rookie
Joined
Jul 9, 2015
Messages
23
Link > Falcon > Sheik > Samus > Puff > Link > Falco > Falcon > Fox > Marth > Mewtwo > ?
 
Last edited:

Suzukipot

Actual Mother trash
Joined
Dec 13, 2015
Messages
114
Location
United States
NNID
em12498
3DS FC
0404-9964-5652
When I was young and played Melee casually, I really only played the characters recognizable to me and that I really liked (so Pikachu, Yoshi, Zelda/Sheik etc.) but for some reason I was really drawn to Ice Climbers and ended up playing them the most. Fast forward to 2015. I was a strict Ice Climbers main a few months ago but now I've switched to Peach because...well, she's more fun to play. RNG is fun to gamble with, the booty bump is fun, hitting people with her parasol is fun! It's also less work maining Peach as opposed to Icies. I also contemplated maining Marth for a while, but in the end I went back to Peach. Also, I think what inspired my changing to Peach was casually playing her in PM and Sm4sh. I dunno, something about her playstyle just appeals to me. As far as my secondaries go, there's nothing special to say about them. I play Fox because he's the best and I play Sheik because I'm good with her. There wasn't really a "path" to picking them.
 
Top Bottom